Do you know what a tent is?

I always liked tents, and thought I should enjoy living in one; and when I was a little girl, on many a stormy day when we couldn’t go to school, I played with my sisters at living in tents.  We would take a small clothes-horse and tip it down upon its sides, half open; then, covering it with shawls, we crept in, and were happy enough for the rest of the afternoon.  I tell you this, that you may also play tents some day, if you haven’t already.

The tent of Gemila’s father is, however, quite different from ours.  Two or three long poles hold it up, and over them hangs a cloth made of goats’-hair, or sometimes sheepskins, which are thick enough to keep out either heat or cold.  The ends of the cloth are fastened down by pegs driven into the sand, or the strong wind coming might blow the tent away.  The tent-cloth pushes back like a curtain for the door.  Inside, a white cloth stretched across divides this strange house into two rooms; one is for the men, the other for the women and children.  In the tent there is no furniture like ours; nothing but mats, and low cushions called divans; not even a table from which to eat, nor a bed to sleep upon.  But the mats and the shawls are very gorgeous and costly, and we are very proud when we can buy any like them for our parlors.  And, by the way, I must tell you that these people have been asleep all through the heat of the day,—­the time when you would have been coming home from school, eating your dinner, and going back to school again.  They closed the tent-door to keep out the terrible blaze of the sun, stretched themselves on the mats, and slept until just now, when the night-wind began to come.

Now they can sit outside the tent and enjoy the evening, and the mother brings out dates and little hard cakes of bread, with plenty of butter made from goats’ milk.  The tall, dark servant-woman, with loose blue cotton dress and bare feet, milks a camel, and they all take their supper, or dinner perhaps I had better call it.  They have no plates, nor do they sit together to eat.  The father eats by himself:  when he has finished, the mother and children take the dates and bread which he leaves.  We could teach them better manners, we think; but they could teach us to be hospitable and courteous, and more polite to strangers than we are.

When all is finished, you see there are no dishes to be washed and put away.

The stars have come out, and from the great arch of the sky they look down on the broad sands, the lonely rocks, the palm-trees, and the tents.  Oh, they are so bright, so steady, and so silent, in that great, lonely place, where no noise is heard! no sounds of people or of birds or animals, excepting the sleepy groaning of a camel, or the low song that little Alee is singing to his sister as they lie upon their backs on the sand, and watch the slow, grand movement of the stars that are always journeying towards the west.